Hugs, from Helen in Healdsburg

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Well, I'm squeaking in just under the wire with my finish for the Schnibbles Parade, but I worked on this all day and stayed up late (like almost 4am late!!) to finish it up! I had the pattern already so I figured I really ought to actually do this one, instead of just intending to do it! :-) The pattern is Sweetness, a set of 3 mini quilts in one pattern (quite a deal in my opinion!), by Corey Yoder of Little Miss Shabby. The pattern is printed up on nice heavy, glossy cardstock, with great color and clear instructions. I decided to make the Floret Mini since I also have the other two patterns in the larger size and I figured why make a mini and then repeat it in a larger size? I knew with what I call my "Hobby ADD" I'd never finish the larger version if I had already done a mini! :-D

So here is my Floret mini: no name for it yet. I'm bad at that: It's a wonder my girls have names! It's for our trailer, thus the green to match. I was planning to make it into a pillow, but it's a bit big for that (19x19"), so maybe a table topper. I'm pretty happy with it.

And here it is during the chain piecing process! I thought I'd never get done with all those stitch and flip corners!

Sunday, May 10, 2015

We've had our trailer 4 weeks, and of the 2 weekends that we were going to take it out the weather nixed our plans, so we decided to just take her out for a day trip to the coast.

We went to the overlook by Duncan's Landing (between Bodega and Jenner) and just parked her and had lunch, read, watched the birds, and painted parts of our little clock for her (to make it match the trailer better.) It was really gusty and cold, but the view was gorgeous and it was wonderful to enjoy the view and not be frozen or windblown!! :-)We really felt spoiled!! :-)

This picture wast taken looking out the widow. It looks a little dark and grey, but it was brighter about an hour earlier, and the sea was and amazing bluish-green. So pretty!!

Our cozy little perch overlooking the ocean. It was great!! And since they closed the bathrooms that were at Duncan's Landing we've always had to leave in a rush when I needed to use the bathroom, but yesterday I had my own little portable potty!! :-D Yay!!It stayed light till about 8pm, so we had a nice afternoon with plenty of time to relax. Can't wait till we can REALLY take her camping!!

And if you look at the quilt in my previous post, you'll see that the blue-green in the quilt is to go with the blue-green of the trailer!

Thursday, March 26, 2015

This is what I've been working on for this quilt-along. I've decided that the white background behind the navy X blocks stands out too much and doesn't blend with the rest of the blocks, so I'm going to have to make more X blocks in the cream fabrics. Ugh!! So I guess I've made a start on another quilt with navy X blocks with a WHITE background!! :-( I did check with Steph and Paul and they both think the white blocks should be removed, so I know my instincts were right about this. Oh well, live and learn.

So here is this weeks assignment for the quilt-along: make the petal blocks. I'm making a picnic sized quilt, so I had 8 blocks to make, or 32 individual petals. I was so glad when they were all done: it seemed to take forever to make them!!

`I decided to do a turned under petal applique, because I knew that if I made them the raw edge way it would always bother me. I did the freezer paper method and glued them on with the Jillily Studio Appli-Glue. It sure is great stuff for getting appliques in place and not having your thread catch on pins while you stitch it down! I tried to machine applique the petals down, but the only matching thread I had was a DMC two ply for hand stitching, and it kept breaking in the machine, so I'm going to have to hand stitch all those petals down: eek!!! That'll take me awhile!

~A close up of the petal block.~

Most of the fabrics are from various Fig Tree Quilts fabric lines, with a few other fabrics added in navy and the greenish blue (the petals above really are more greenish, but this was taken at night.)And speaking of night, it is ridiculously late, so I'm off to bed!! :-)

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

So someday I'll figure out how to make separate tabs on the top of my blog, one for quilts and one for cards, but for now they are going to go all together! ;-) This card is for the Ellen Hutson "Mix It Up" challenge here.

The challenge was to use Ellen Hutson products with Hero Arts products. I used the Hero Arts Flag Pattern stencil and H.A. inks: Tide Pool and Fresh Peach, along with Stampin' Up! Baja Breeze ink. The stamp set I used was Ellen Hutson Bokeh Dots, and the word stamp was from Waltzingmouse Stamps, and I added a few sequins to finish it off. It was much easier to use the stencil and add the stamping on top than I had imagined!! It's not publication quality, but I'm pretty happy with it since it's my first attempt at this technique!

Saturday, February 7, 2015

A close up detail. The fabric line was designed by Sandy Gervais. Love the fall colors!

This one is titled"Pacific Island Sunset" I made it for a competition in 2008 sponsored by Quiltmaker Magazine and Robert Kaufman Fabrics. Made from batiks. It actually made it into the traveling exhibit and traveled around the US for the year!

A
close up of the quilting detail. There are sun rays coming out from
the red "sun", oriental "clouds" in the light blue sky, swirls in the
darker sky area, waves in the lower area where the "water" is, pebbling
in the brown "sand" and swirls like vines in the foliage on the right
side. Pics aren't the best, but I 'm learning about digital
photography. I got pretty good at film, but those days are gone, and I
have a new set of things to learn!! :-)